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Focus on: Education
23 July 2010
 "Children at Portchester School")
Children spend a huge proportion of their lives at school and tend to have important, insightful and constructive things to say about what works and what doesn't, so earlier this year, we launched programme of work exploring their views on key aspects of education. This work will aim to improve the way schools are run by inputting children's opinions.
We are focusing on making the education system work for all children. Currently, almost every measure of educational success, from exam results to exclusions, shows young people from poorer households or from certain minority ethnic groups do less well.
We are looking at four areas of policy in detail:
- Children's participation in the running of their schools: We want to ensure that pupils are consulted on both key decisions and day-to-day issues. This includes involvement in school councils, being part of staff appointments panels, and contributing to decisions such as who to award the contract for school meals. We have invited over 20,000 schools to contribute to a survey on how they involve their pupils in running their school, and will use this information to produce a set of best practice examples.
- Schools admissions policies: We will be exploring how best to make sure that the system for school admissions is fair, and works in the best interests of all children and young people. We have commissioned research looking at young people's views on this, and other key areas of their education, which will form our evidence base as we move forward.
- What makes a good teacher: We plan to gather young people's opinions on what qualities a successful teacher should have, using this information to influence policy around the recruitment and professional development of teachers.
- School exclusions: We will explore how to ensure the system for excluding young people from school is fair and transparent. We also want to make sure that young people who have been excluded from school have access to high quality alternative education.
For more information about our work in the area of education contact John Connolly, Principal Policy Advisor (Education).
Photograph taken from the Children's Commmissioner's visit to Portchester School. Photographer: Carmen Valino. With thanks to UNICEF.
